The present invention relates to dangerous substance detecting techniques based on the mass spectrometry, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for detecting a dangerous substance.
JP-A-2000-028579 and JP-A-2001-093461 propose dangerous substance detecting techniques based on the mass spectrometry which basically excel in the speed, sensitivity and selectivity. U.S. Pat. No. 4,909,090 in turn proposes a vapor sampling probe which has a lamp disposed on the front face for heating the surface of a sample in an object under testing.
A dangerous substance detecting apparatus is required to rapidly determine in case of emergency, for example, when a suspicious article is detected, whether or not the suspicious article includes an explosive dangerous substance. In addition, the dangerous substance detecting apparatus is desirably capable of highly selectively detecting a trace of marks at a high sensitivity. A testing of infinitesimal marks at a high sensitivity involves efficiently feeding the marks to an ion source for ionization and performing a mass analysis using a mass spectrometer. Also desirably, the dangerous substance detecting apparatus is portable so that it can be carried anywhere with a high mobility, and can be driven with low power consumption.